Veal Scallopini

I am now in a new visiting modus operandi. My first stop? Greensboro by way of Durham by way of Charlotte starting with Nashville. I will not get into the details of my flight because, well, at this point all airplane travel has ridiculous an inexplicable delays, redundancies and general stupid. Okay. I will say something...in Charlotte I was going to catch a plane to Durham. When I got there the gate manager lady announced (and it seemed for the second or third time) that she needed volunteers to go on a later plane, that round-trip tickets would be their reward for their troubles, that she needed 14 people to do this. 14! So then, as our scheduled loading time came and went, she got it down to 10, then 4, then 2 then we were golden. Everyone got on the plane (15+ minutes late) and sat down. And guess what? There were empty seats. So then, instead of getting on with the whole flying thing, we had to wait while they RECALLED the people who begrudgingly bowed out in the first place. There were about four of these people. So then we had to wait for them to get on the plane. Then there was more counting. Then, obviously, they had to get one person back off. There was a seat but, you know, it just wasn't going to work out. I mean, really. And the worst thing is that there is never any explanation of why this sort of stupid shit happens. No 'sorry ladies and gentlemen, we don't know how to properly communicate with one another which has led to this ridiculous musical airplane chairs game.' Nope.

My last night in Tennessee involved packing, dinner (veal scallopini with rice and broccoli c/o my mother) and furiously reading a book that had to stay in Tennessee and be returned to the library.

I read the first book in Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next series back in the summer and enjoyed it thoroughly. One part English mystery, one part literary science fiction, one or two strong helpings of satire and wit, another part inside reader/writer book/story plot jokes and you've got a pretty original world. I seriously recommend you start at the beginning (Jane Eyre Affair) and go on from there. They're fun but smart. Naughty but nice. You know, pretty great.